


Until You Set Your Old Heart Free

by Traincat



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:25:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: The door opened just enough for a man to slip in and then clicked back shut again. Johnny startled, struggling up on his elbows.“Hey, hey, s’just me,” a familiar voice said.Peter straightened up. There was a hat pulled down low over his eyes and a bulky jacket hid his lean frame. He knocked on the closed door, grinning. He looked tired. “Candygram.”--Johnny, five (or four) relationships, and Spider-Man underneath it all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I do prompt memes on tumblr, and sometimes I have a lot of feelings about large swathes of Fantastic Four canon and also Johnny Storm In Love, and sometimes those things overlap and you write emotional whump. This is a very soft M, because Daken.
> 
> Title from Hello My Old Heart by The Oh Hellos, courtesy of pommenade. Prompt from [A Softer World](www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1073).

**Crystal**

Johnny hadn’t expected that Spider-Man would actually be any help building the Spider-Mobile. The first day he figured Spider-Man would hang around, crack a few jokes, and then swing right back out the window to do whatever it was he did when he was punching New York’s strangest street crime in the face.

But Spider-Man stuck around, which was… nice. He grew less and less cutting by the hour, their banter settling into something less insult-based and more friendly. He genuinely wanted to help on the car, curious about every step, and he was surprisingly adept at mechanics. Johnny rarely had to tell him how to do anything twice.

His voice, a little muffled by the mask, still sent shivers up Johnny’s spine. He’d really thought he was over the old teenage crush. He hadn’t thought about Spider-Man that way in months. It was, admittedly, easier not to think about Spider-Man that way when he wasn't crashing all of Johnny's dates and hanging around, showing off, at once the most infuriating person on the planet and someone whose mask Johnny desperately wanted to roll up so he could kiss him. 

Maybe he was just lonely, with Crystal gone. He'd gotten used to having someone to talk to. It was easier than he'd ever imagined it would be, talking to Spider-Man. Crystal had never really cared about cars, but she'd liked the race track, the electricity of the atmosphere. He wondered if Spider-Man would feel the same. Wondered if he was being awful to either of them, thinking about that. Long distance relationships really were the worst.

“Hey, hand me, y’know, the thingy for the you-know-what,” Spider-Man said, gesturing at the entire toolbox.

Alright, so there was hardly anything Johnny had to tell him twice.

 

**Alicia**

Why hadn’t anybody ever told him Alicia was so fun? Around Ben she’d always seemed quiet and reserved, maybe kind of shy. More of a wallflower, all artistic sensibilities. Johnny had liked her, sure, but if he’d had to pick someone to be stranded on a desert island with it would have been ~~Spider-Man Julie Angel Spider-Man~~ a long list over her.

Go figure, the eight-foot-tall guy made out of rocks had a way of stealing the spotlight.

But Alicia on her own? She was so much fun. Johnny was so in love with her. She had a way of dulling every other feeling he’d ever had for anyone else.

~~Except one.~~

They were sitting on the floor her apartment, getting drunk off of cheap wine, playing, of all things, truth or dare, and they were laughing.

“You can’t keep picking dares!” Alicia said, faux accusing. She was trying very hard to look serious and it was very, very cute.

“But I’m so good at them!” Johnny said, draining his glass. He poured another. “Okay, okay. Truth. Hit me with your best shot.”

Alicia put her finger to her lips while she was thinking. She was wearing his shirt and an absolutely tiny pair of shorts and when Johnny’s turn came next he was going to dare her to kiss him again.

He loved being in love.

“Who is your biggest fantasy?” she asked. And, before he could be smooth, she nudged his knee and said, “And no, you can’t pick me.”

She left her hand there, squeezing gently.

He laughed, and maybe he’d had too much wine, because without thinking he said, “Spidey,” and then he froze. He was relieved Alicia couldn’t see his face, wasn’t sure how much his expression was giving away. He still had a second, could play it off as a joke, maybe, except Alicia was still touching him and he’d gone tense all over. Her expression was ponderous.

“Spidey?” she said. “As in –”

“Spider-Man,” he said, mouth dry. He fumbled with the bottle; Alicia took it from him. She moved forward, looped her arms around his neck.

“I would have gone with Daredevil, myself,” she said, and then she pressed her mouth to his.

He loved her so much.

 

**~~Alicia~~ Lyja**

“One of these days, Alice…” Johnny said, burning through Spider-Man’s web net. “Bang! Zoom! To the moon!”

“I do love when you stick to the classics,” Spider-Man said, springing nimbly out of the way. Johnny shot after him. “So, wait, when you say she was an alien from outer space…?”

“I mean, she was an alien from outer space,” Johnny said, cutting off Spider-Man’s path with a wall of flame. “A Skrull. I was never – with the real Alicia. Do you remember the Beyonder’s planet? Skrulls switched the real Alicia out with the fake then, to try and get to Ben.”

“But Ben stayed in space,” Spider-Man filled in, ducking between two buildings, as if that would halt Johnny’s pursuit. “I remember. That’s awful, Torch. And you never suspected --?”

“No,” Johnny admitted, bitterly. “I guess I never was a good friend to the real Alicia, huh? If I couldn’t tell the difference?”

“I don’t know, Torchy,” Spider-Man hummed. “Seems to me that if they originally sent her to the fool the big guy himself, it must have been a pretty clever job…”

“I guess,” Johnny said, but it wasn’t comforting. There was the second half of the equation: _I wanted so badly for it to be real this time._

Had he overlooked things just because it was more convenient that way? Ignored his brain in favor of his heart? Finally, there had been someone who picked him – him over everyone else. He sat up late at nights and wondered, what would have happened to him if they’d been uninterrupted that night, if Ben and Philip Masters had never barged in and revealed everything. If he’d gone with her somewhere, away from his family. If he'd be happy, never knowing.

If she'd ever loved him. She'd said she had.

“Hey,” Spider-Man said, snapping him out of it. “First? This is not your fault, Johnny. Second? What’s black and white and on fire all over?”

A newspaper hit Johnny in the face. Spider-Man crowed with laughter.

“That’s it!” Johnny said, hurling fireballs at him. Spider-Man weaved between them expertly, racing along the edge of a building. “When I get my hands on you –”

“Oh, promises, promises,” Spider-Man said. “So you and the Thing are still pretty cool?”

“More or less! Ben and I are family,” Johnny said. “You can’t believe everything you read in The Bugle.”

“Perish the thought!” Spider-Man said dramatically, head thrown back, hand pressed to the spider on his chest. Johnny laughed.

“Hey, wall-crawler… I’ve really enjoyed all this goofing off today,” he admitted.

“Don’t start getting mushy on me,” Spider-Man said. He was making something huge out of his webs, obscuring the view. “Wait until you see our grand finale!”

Johnny squinted. “What’s that supposed to be? A giant web-shield? A cocoon?”

Either way, it couldn’t stand up to his flames. He flew straight at Spider-Man, who leapt out of the way at the very last second.

“Nope! Camouflage, you dummy!”

“What are you –” Johnny realized what was going on too late to alter his course. “Oh no. Water tower!”

He ended up lying soaked up on a rooftop, flames extinguished, but at least Spider-Man hadn’t quite managed to escape the flood. He was lying a few feet away, costume soaked and even clingier than usual, laughing a little under his breath.

“Very funny,” Johnny told him, dry.

“I thought you’d get a charge out of it,” Spider-Man replied. “Am I good or am I good?”

“The worst,” Johnny said, sitting up. “Y’know, Spider-Man, you can be such a loud-mouth, show-off jerk sometimes!”

Spider-Man stared back at him with those big blank eyes. The old question came back to Johnny, the burning desire to know: what color eyes did he have? Blue? Brown? Were they serious and unreadable, or did Spider-Man have those eyes that you could see mirth in? Read his every emotion? He'd always thought he was good at reading Spider-Man's moods, even through the spandex. He wondered if he'd be better, skin-to-skin.

“Yeah,” Spider-Man said. “The same goes for you.”

In Johnny’s secret imaginings, this was the part where Spider-Man crawled over him on this rooftop, took his mask off, let Johnny see his face – let Johnny kiss him while Spider-Man’s hands wandered his body, erasing anyone else’s touch.

In the real world, Johnny splashed water at him and said, “Get stuffed! And… thanks.”

 

**Namorita**

Nita was dead.

It was the thing he’d been avoiding thinking about, hitting the club scene hard, ignoring the unrest. And look where that had gotten him. Alone in the hospital, in between Sue’s visits, there wasn’t much to do but think about it, though. Namorita was dead.

Their relationship had been public. The mob that night probably knew exactly who they’d been beating – not just Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, founding member of the Fantastic Four, no. Johnny Storm, Namorita Prentiss’s ex-boyfriend. He’d watched the footage, sick. Watched Nita slam Nitro into that bus.

They hadn’t been together for a while, and it hadn’t been great at the end. They’d always fought. It had been fun, at first, the arguments, letting their passions build until they crashed together, tongues and teeth and hands all over. At some point, it had stopped being fun.

Fire and water. Go figure.

He missed her, though. He didn’t want her to be dead. He didn’t want all those kids to be dead. That stupid television show – if she hadn’t been so stubborn, if she’d come to him, he could’ve gotten her something better.

At least, that was how it went in his head.

The door opened just enough for a man to slip in and then clicked back shut again. Johnny startled, struggling up on his elbows.

“Hey, hey, s’just me,” a familiar voice said.

Peter straightened up. There was a hat pulled down low over his eyes and a bulky jacket hid his lean frame. He knocked on the closed door, grinning. He looked tired. “Candygram.”

“See, now if you didn’t actually bring me candy…” Johnny said, falling back against the pillows.

“Who do you think I am?” Peter said, actually producing a chocolate bar from his pocket. Johnny adored him all over again; he hadn’t had anything but hospital food since he’d woken up. “Who loves you like I do, huh?”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Johnny said as Peter took a seat by his bedside. “Been watching the news. You really did it. I couldn’t believe it when I woke up.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, hand to the back of his neck. “I mean, I always knew that when the mask finally came off, however it came off, it was going to be a big deal, but I also sort of thought I’d be dead if that happened so I guess I just never really considered how big of a deal. I, uh, climbed in through a window. Don’t tell hospital security.”

“How’s MJ holding up?” Johnny asked.

“You know how she is,” Peter said. “She’s – she and my aunt, they’ve both been champs. I shouldn’t – I didn’t know how bad it was going to be, for them.” He sighed, slumping in his seat. “Tony didn’t tell me how bad it was going to be for them.”

Johnny let himself reach for Peter’s hand, just for a second. Or he meant it to be just for a second. Peter turned his hand over, took Johnny’s hand in his. His thumb ran over Johnny’s knuckles, soothing. Gentle.

“Sue says you’re doing better,” Peter said.

“Yeah, they’re thinking about releasing me soon,” Johnny said. He rolled his eyes. “Not that home sounds amazing right now. Once I’m on my feet I’ll be playing babysitter while the latest installment of the Family Richards Dramarama plays out. 'No, Franklin, Mommy and Daddy still love each other, they just have ideological differences, Daddy's word, which is a big fancy way of saying the whole world sucks.' Woo-hoo.”

Peter snorted. “Well I’d volunteer me and MJ to come help out, but with everything that’s going on…”

He trailed off, gaze averted. He hadn’t let go of Johnny’s hand.

“Peter,” Johnny asked. “I don’t – I’ve never done this before, been on the sidelines like this. I … Sue doesn’t tell me things, sometimes.” He swallowed, bitter at having to admit the truth. When things were bad, Sue shielded him. She meant well. He knew she meant well. “How bad is it out there?”

Peter didn’t reply. He just sat there, holding Johnny’s hand.

It was answer enough.

“Come on,” Peter said after a beat. He let go of Johnny’s hand and Johnny tried hard not to feel cold at the loss of his touch. That wasn't fair to either of them. “Eat your candy. I’ve got this amazing trick I can do with a vending machine and a handful of quarters.”

 

**Daken**

He was selfish, at the end of the day. He should have helped with the clean-up. Instead he thought about Daken throwing Reed from the building. He thought of Daken tricking him, of burning Wolverine. He thought about Daken’s mouth on his mouth, his hands on Johnny’s body, Daken all over him and inside him –

He was sick in the kitchen – the nearest sink – instead of being helpful. He stayed there, breathing raggedly, fighting both nausea and memory.

A hand landed on his back. He jumped, remembering Daken running his hand up and down Johnny’s spine, remembering -- _be still for me, there's a good boy._

But it was just Peter. Johnny stared at him, into the mask’s big blank eyes, unable to speak.

Peter ripped the mask off. He looked worried, underneath, eyebrows knit tight and face pale.

“Torch?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

 _Months ago I fucked the guy who just tried to kill my brother-in-law,_ Johnny couldn’t say. _Who just killed innocent people, outside my home._

He couldn’t breathe.

“Okay, okay,” Peter said, taking him by the shoulders. His grip was grounding. “It’s okay, you’re okay. You're fine, I'm fine. Sit down.” He got Johnny into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and then he got him a glass of water. “Drink this.”

Johnny only just managed to, washing most of the awful taste from his mouth.

“What happened?” Peter asked again, sinking into the chair opposite Johnny. He leaned in. Their knees bumped. “You’re white as a sheet. I saw you catch Reed, is that --?”

Oh, that was right. Johnny remembered seeing a familiar flash of red and blue as he flew Reed back up to the rooftop.

“Did you hit him?” he asked.

“Who? Tall, dark, and loony? Well, medium-sized, anyway,” Peter said. He tilted his head, trying to get Johnny to look him in the eyes. “I got a few licks in.”

“Good,” Johnny said. “I hope it hurt.”

“That _was_ my intention,” Peter said. “Never liked that guy. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but hey. Sure didn’t get any of daddy’s quarterway decent qualities… Johnny?”

Daken had known about Spider-Man. He’d listened in on a conversation Johnny had had with Sue, once, casually leaning in the doorway while they'd talked about Spider-Man's latest exploits, and when Sue was out of the room he’d turned that knowing smile on Johnny. Johnny had just thought he’d wanted to fuck in the kitchen, and had been about to say no, when those hands closed on his waist.

“Spider-Man. That’s cute.” Daken’s head bent, his lips at Johnny’s pulse point, tasting his throat, sighing, “Oh, love does smell good on you.”

“I’m not in love with him,” Johnny had said, pointless.

He’d teased Johnny about it, smirking, _why don’t you pretend I’m him,_ and _if you want me to touch you, you have to tell me how you want him to touch you,_ and Johnny _had_ and then Daken had killed those people tonight and now Daken was dead.

“Real people stay dead,” he repeated, numb.

“What does that mean?” Peter asked, the babbling from earlier replaced by a quiet intensity.

“Daken said it to me, this afternoon,” Johnny admitted.

“Daken was out of his mind,” Peter said.

“I know.” Daken had been so right about so many things. Had known things about Johnny that Johnny hadn’t even known. “He said my being here was an insult.”

He didn’t know why he was telling Peter this. He desperately wanted to stop talking, and he couldn’t.

He wasn’t expecting Peter to haul him out of his chair, up into a hug. Peter’s arms were tight as a vise around him, his grip unbreakable. Peter said, right in his ear, “You standing here in the exact opposite of an insult. I’m glad, Johnny. I’m so happy you're here.”

“Me too,” Johnny said, clutching at handfuls of Peter's costume.

“I missed you,” Peter said, “so much.”

“Me too,” Johnny repeated, helplessly.

Peter let him go, only to take him by the shoulders. His eyes were a little red.

“So you don’t listen to him,” he said. “You listen to me: you being here is one of the best things to ever happen to me.”

If Peter was crying, then so was Johnny. He swiped futilely at his eyes and Peter pulled him back in, his hands at Johnny’s back, and for a long moment Johnny just let him hold him.

“Okay,” Johnny said. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here at tumblr](http://traincat.tumblr.com/post/156374266614/6-i-have-loved-since-you-but-when-the-new). Part one takes place aroundish Amazing Spider-Man #126. Part two is set in mid-270s of Fantastic Four, after Johnny and "Alicia" get together but before Ben comes back. Half of the dialogue from part three comes straight from Fantastic Four #362. Part four is Civil War, after Peter is unmasked. Part five is post-Daken #23.


End file.
